LPL Financial has recruited a $1 billion Central Florida-based team from Ameriprise.
Cebert Wealth Advisors is based in The Villages, one of the country’s largest retirement communities. The team includes founder and president Dale Cebert, as well as Alec Thomas, Catherine Harris, Tom Romanac, Stephen Peterson, David DeSantis and Mark Dickerson, working with more than 1,700 clients.
Cebert first registered in the industry in 1998 at Conseco Financial Services, with multi-year stints at Securities America, National Planning Corporation, Morgan Stanley and FSC Securities before joining Ameriprise in 2018. According to Cebert, the team helps clients navigate retirement transitions with “sustainable income, long-term financial freedom and legacy planning.”
“We emphasize long-term relationships over transactions,” he said. “Many of our clients introduce their children to our firm, allowing us to support multiple generations within the same family.”
The advisors are supported by an 11-person support staff that will also be moving to LPL. According to Cebert, joining LPL allowed the firm to stay independent while boosting its resources available to clients, including “access to broader investment solutions, research and technology.”
Last month, LPL revealed it would acquire Mariner Advisor Network, a division of Mariner with 367 advisors and $31 billion in assets that was already affiliated with LPL. As part of the deal, Private Advisor Group (an RIA and LPL office of supervisory jurisdiction) would acquire the hybrid business.
Additionally, Ameriprise’s 2024 lawsuit against LPL Financial has continued apace. Ameriprise originally accused the IBD of directing recruits leaving Ameriprise for LPL to take client information, in a “widespread” misuse of client information (in turn, LPL accused Ameriprise of “remarkable hypocrisy”).
Ameriprise argued that the advisors who left should have their personal devices reviewed for allegedly stolen client data, and LPL and Ameriprise purportedly agreed to have a third-party forensic examiner investigate the claims. However, some of the impacted advisors objected, arguing they weren’t party to the agreement.
Earlier this month, a federal judge affirmed that the advisors at the center of the dispute did not have to submit their devices for the forensic review, arguing that arbitration hearings focused on the accusations are scheduled for October, making the need to “preserve the status quo” through the data search moot.
Additionally, both LPL and Ameriprise have disclosed data breaches to regulators in the state of Maine in recent months, with LPL alleging that cybercriminals accessed advisors’ devices via “malware distributed through phishing messages.”